


Run on Empty

by longleggedgit



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2010-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:09:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longleggedgit/pseuds/longleggedgit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year after graduating, Tajima calls Hanai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run on Empty

**Author's Note:**

> Just had a near-future fic plot of these two bouncing around in my head for a while so I went for it. I thought it'd be interesting to play with what would happen if Hanai was signed to a baseball university but not Tajima. Hopefully I didn't botch any details about Japanese baseball university recruiting. Thanks to aunt_agatha for the beta! :&gt;

Hanai gets the phone call sometime shortly after his morning workout and freezes when he sees the name on the screen, not quite trusting his eyes. He scans his memory quickly—does he know any other Tajimas he's forgotten about?—before he realizes he's about to miss the call and snaps his phone open.

"Hello?"

"Hanai! Hey!"

Definitely not some other Tajima, then; Hanai would recognize Tajima Yuuichirou's voice even if it had been longer than a year since they'd last spoken. He swallows and shifts his phone to the other ear.

"Tajima," he says. He's about to ask how he got Hanai's phone number, but doesn't want to sound rude, so instead he just falls awkwardly silent. He's glad he managed to answer somewhat neutrally; he wouldn't want to have to explain how he knew who was calling, or how Tajima's old number got programmed into his new phone against his better judgment.

"I got your number from Abe," Tajima says, still as adept as ever at reading Hanai's mind, apparently. "Sorry, you're probably busy—"

"I'm not busy at all," Hanai says quickly, although he's not sure why, and he's relieved Tajima can't see him blush through the phone.

Tajima does sound typically amused, though. "You wanna do something, then?"

Hanai stubs his toe on the doorframe to his bedroom and curses under his breath. "Do something?" he says. "Where do you live now?"

"Ah, Tokyo," Tajima says, and Hanai wonders if he's imagining that Tajima sounds disappointed that Hanai doesn't know this already.

"Oh!" Hanai picks at his sweat-soaked shirt and briefly runs over his schedule for the day, even though he knows he's completely free. They got the Emperor's birthday off from training and school, so he was planning on doing nothing much beyond picking up groceries and maybe vacuuming if he was feeling productive. "Yeah, I could—what do you want to do? I just got done running so I need a shower—"

"Great! I'm out now, what train should I take to get to your place?"

Well, that's not what Hanai was expecting at all. And yet he still finds himself answering "Take the Chiyoda line to Shibuya and hang a left" before he knows what he's doing. Once he's finished giving Tajima directions, he hangs up, says, "Oh, _fuck_," and strips out of his clothes to take the least relaxing shower of his life.

It's not that Hanai doesn't want to see Tajima. He's thought about calling him himself several times since they graduated, but his uncertainty always stopped him. Tajima's not the type to hold grudges, and Hanai knows that, but in the end, he could never shake the fear that Tajima wouldn't want to speak to him anymore and opted to play it safe rather than know for sure. That Hanai got drafted by a good baseball university is something Tajima would never fault him for. That Hanai got drafted by the very same university that made an offer to Tajima first, only to retract it when he tore a ligament that put him out of commission for as long as any doctor could guess, was another thing entirely.

And now he's on his way over to Hanai's apartment, and Hanai hasn't even taken out the damn trash for over a week.

"Fuck," Hanai curses again, turning off the water and toweling himself dry at the same time he starts to hop around trying to make things a little more presentable.

The buzzer to his apartment goes off before Hanai's gotten a fresh shirt on but after he's collected his laundry into one corner of the bedroom, so that's a small point in his favor, anyway. He picks up the wall-mount phone, unable to even get out a greeting in the face of Tajima's overenthusiastic "I'M HERE," and presses the button to open the front door of the building.

Then, he waits.

Tajima opens the door to his apartment without knocking, and seems a little startled to see Hanai shirtless and kicking a bag of non-burnables into the hall closet—he's not the only startled one—but his expression shifts into a familiar smile in no time.

"Happy Emperor's Birthday!" Tajima cheers, holding up a six-pack. "I brought beer!"

"Ha," is all Hanai can get out at first, but he can't help his own smile, either. "Sorry, thanks, I was just—come in."

Hanai darts into the bedroom to pull on the first clean t-shirt he sees while Tajima checks the place out—it's small for Hanai's tastes, but pretty nice for Tokyo, and Tajima doesn't waste time lavishing compliments.

"Man, I'm still in the dorms. This is nice."

"So you're going to university?" Hanai asks when he comes out of the bedroom, still a little embarrassed that he doesn't know.

Tajima looks embarrassed then, too, uncharacteristically. "Not a good school or anything. I'm just getting some general credits right now. The only thing I was ever good at was sports, so." He laughs and slaps the side of his bad leg. "They said I've gotta wait at least another four months before I even think about playing seriously."

If he makes it too obvious his chest is twisting up miserably, Hanai knows Tajima will feel bad for bringing it up, so he turns away under the pretense of putting Tajima's beer in the fridge. They're not even old enough to buy it yet, but Hanai somehow isn't surprised Tajima has no qualms whatsoever about carrying it in plain sight all the way to Shibuya from wherever he was in the first place. Then again, it's more likely he just bought it at the konbini next door.

"I'm glad you're planning on going back to baseball," Hanai manages after a moment, and he means it. Some nights he still has dreams about Nishiura, and Tajima is always a focal point. He doesn't think he'll ever stop missing the way things were when they were on the same team.

"Yeah," Tajima agrees, and then he thankfully changes the subject. "Do your parents pay for this place? It must be expensive as hell!"

"The university offered us a lot of money, so they don't mind so much," Hanai says. He glances at the clock and notes that it's 11:12 a.m. "Uh. Do you want a beer now?"

"Why not!" Tajima grins and Hanai reflects sadly on what he's doing to the fairly strict diet their coach has put them on before thinking to hell with it, cracking one open for each of them and carrying them over to the kitchen table.

"Kanpai," Tajima says, lifting his can. Hanai echoes him and they both drink, and then he almost coughs his mouthful all over himself when Tajima says without warning, "I saw your spread in that sports magazine the other day."

_Oh, God_, Hanai thinks in horror, still choking a little. He'd hoped against hope no one he knew would see this month's _Baseball Today_, but in particular, not _Tajima._

"That," Hanai begins when he's caught his breath.

Tajima starts laughing before he can continue. "Why're you so embarrassed? It was really good! They called you one of Japan's 'up-and-comings,' and your picture was—"

"Naked!" Hanai blurts, unable to stop himself. Tajima starts laughing harder.

"Well, not _totally_," he says.

If Hanai's face could get any redder, he'd already be drunk. "I didn't even know they had a photographer in the locker room," he says, desperate to explain to _someone_ because he hasn't talked to anyone who's seen it yet. He's hoping his mother and sisters somehow miss that particular bit of publicity, but they never seem to miss anything, even two-sentence clippings from the local newspaper, which have a habit of getting mailed to him along with the crime report. "I never would've—"

"Hanai. I _know_ you're not the type to willingly spring for an underwear shot. I figured it was something like that. Relax. I mostly thought it was funny."

"I'm glad someone does," Hanai mutters, but he takes another swig of beer to cover up for the fact that he's almost smiling, because when Tajima puts it that way, maybe it is a little.

Tajima, however, falls strangely silent after that, and it becomes apparent to Hanai that if he wants to keep a conversation going, the ball is in his court—the only thing Tajima seems intent on just now is finishing his beer in record time.

"You usually polish off an entire beer before 11:30?" Hanai asks, but he doesn't bother checking if Tajima wants a second before getting up to grab two more.

"Only when I'm nervous," Tajima says, making Hanai stop dead in his tracks on the way back to the table.

"Nervous?" Hanai repeats. Tajima looks up at him, and he doesn't know how he just now realized that Tajima's face has been flushed ever since he got here, almost like he was running, except he wasn't out of breath when he walked in the door.

"Hanai," Tajima says slowly, like he's thinking about his words, even though Hanai knows that simply does not happen where Tajima is concerned. "Why didn't you ever call me after high school?"

It's a question he was expecting to have to answer sooner or later, but he was hoping for later, and Hanai takes a deep breath before forcing himself to move again, taking the seat across from Tajima and sliding the new beer toward him. Tajima opens it and takes a healthy swallow right away, and Hanai takes a moment to note with awe how he doesn't even cringe; Hanai drinks beer to be sociable, but he still hasn't really warmed up to the taste of it. Then again, if their high school lives are anything to go by, they probably live their university lives quite differently.

"I was scared," Hanai says when he can't put off answering anymore.

"Why?" Tajima asks. There's no hint of sarcasm or bite in the question; he's genuinely curious, genuinely has no _clue_, and for a second an all-too-familiar wave of warmth rolls over Hanai. How is it even possible for anyone to be so good?

"You—you're telling me you weren't even the slightest bit upset that Aoyama drafted me right after dropping you?" Hanai demands. "Or that I _accepted_?"

Tajima frowns and traces his finger around the rim of his beer can, and Hanai holds his breath as he waits. It sounds like such a simple question now that he's thrown it out there, but it's been the one thing holding him back from contacting Tajima every time he's wanted to for a year, and the weight of it is making the air in the room feel heavy, hard to breathe.

"I was at first," Tajima says eventually. Hanai exhales, already relieved; a part of him wants Tajima to be mad, maybe, to have been mad at some point in time at least, because a bigger part of him knows he deserves it. "But only for like, a week. Then I realized I'd be more mad at you if you turned it down just because I fucked my knee up, but by then you'd already stopped talking to me."

It's so simple, the way Tajima says it, that Hanai cringes and looks away when Tajima meets his gaze. The guilt has been eating at him for long enough that it doesn't necessarily feel any worse confronting it, but it doesn't feel great, either.

"I'm sorry," Hanai says. "I think in my head the worst possible thing that could happen would be for you to stop talking to me, so I just decided to be the one to stop talking first." _Which was completely stupid_, he thinks.

"But that's just stupid," Tajima says, and Hanai lifts his head up, blinks, and laughs.

"It is," he agrees. "Tajima, I—I'm so, so sorry."

Tajima studies him seriously for longer than Hanai thought he could make his face look like that, but then his smile breaks again and the mood shifts so completely Hanai wonders if he was just imagining that other, solemn Tajima he was drinking with until a moment ago.

"Okay, then," he says. "So we can be friends again now?"

"Yes," Hanai says, not even concerned that it comes out as a veritable gasp of relief.

"Good, because I totally have to make fun of you for this." Tajima hops over the couch on his way to the entryway, still holding his beer, and rustles around in the small bag he brought with him before pulling something out. Something that looks suspiciously like _Baseball Today._

"No. Tajima, no, _please_ put that away."

In lieu of a response, Tajima just grins, plops down on Hanai's small couch, flips the magazine open, and starts to read. "19-year-old freshman Hanai Azusa is turning heads at Aoyama University this year, and looking at his profile, one can certainly see why—"

"Give me that!" Hanai yelps, jumping over the back of the couch and grabbing for the magazine, which Tajima manages to shift just out of his reach.

"We have to finish the whole write-up! You owe me!" Tajima insists, but he's laughing too hard now to be able to read, and anyway, Hanai doesn't see how he can get a good look at the page when he's waving the magazine above his head and Hanai's got a knee to his chest and a hand on his face in an attempt to hold him down and steal it.

They grapple for the magazine for about eight seconds before Tajima is laughing so hard Hanai easily overpowers him, and he plucks the magazine out of his hands and climbs off of Tajima, relaxing back on the opposite end of the couch and glowering at the open page. It still makes him burn with shame to see himself in glossy black-and-white, wearing nothing but trainer shorts and shining with sweat, the arm he had lifted to wipe at his face offering an all-too-clear view of his abdomen muscles. And everything else.

"It's a good photo," Tajima says, making Hanai start when he realizes suddenly they're pressed side-to-side on the couch, close enough that he can smell the beer on Tajima's breath. Hanai refuses to turn his head away from the magazine, afraid that if he does, he'll have to meet Tajima's eyes again, which he's not prepared to do just now.

"The page is all worn," Hanai says suddenly, because it's the truth; there are folds on the corners and a tear starting along the crease. "Didn't this only come out two days ago?"

"I've looked at it a lot," Tajima says, and this time Hanai can't help it, he turns. Just in time for Tajima to rip the magazine out of his hands, throw it on the floor, and kiss him hard enough that he falls and bangs his head on the armrest.

He doesn't mind the pain, though, not when Tajima is crawling into his lap and wrapping his arms around Hanai's neck and kissing him again; not when Hanai's stomach is untangling itself for the first time in a year or more and his hands are burning on Tajima's waist.

"Fuck, it's about time," Tajima moans, breaking the kiss and pressing his forehead against Hanai's, and maybe it's the lack of oxygen to the brain talking, but Hanai laughs.

"I've missed you so much," Hanai says, a little surprised at his boldness but not sorry. He tightens his hold on Tajima's waist, suddenly possessive. Now that he's here, Hanai's not sure he's ever going to be able to let Tajima go.

"Well that's your own damn fault," Tajima says, but there's no venom in it, and then he comes in for another kiss so Hanai doesn't fight back.

They start out kissing playfully, almost shyly, but it turns into something a lot more hot and messy within the space of a few seconds, and before long Hanai is gasping and rocking up against Tajima in a steady rhythm, almost dizzy with how hard they both are. Tajima mumbles something against his mouth and Hanai pulls back just enough to catch his breath, says, "What?"

"I haven't stopped jerking off to that magazine for like, forty-eight hours," Tajima repeats himself.

Hanai has to clench his nails into his palms in order to not come right then and there.

"Christ, do you ever stop talking about masturbating?"

"I would if you'd give me something else to talk about," Tajima purrs, and then he slides down Hanai's chest and starts unbuckling his belt and Hanai goes very, very still.

"Tajima," he says, not a warning so much as a question.

"Don't you wanna know what I've been thinking about doing?" Tajima asks.

_Yes_, Hanai almost very emphatically answers. Instead, he groans and involuntarily lifts his hips a little. "Are you sure you—"

"Fuck, Hanai, _yes,_" Tajima interrupts, clearly exasperated.

Hanai can take a hint. He shuts up. "Okay" is the last thing he gets out before Tajima has his belt off and on the floor somewhere in the vicinity of the magazine, his pants tugged down to his knees.

"Your hipbones look so fucking good in that picture," Tajima says, breath coming out hotly against the outline of Hanai's dick in his underwear, and that does it right there, Hanai knows he's as good as doomed for the rest of his life.

"Oh, shit," he groans, covering his face with his hands.

Tajima hums like that's the kind of response he was going for and starts to suck on one of Hanai's offending hipbones, tugging at the elastic of his waistband until his underwear are down past his knees too, and Hanai is way too humiliated and turned on to look but he knows, _knows_ Tajima's leaving a mark, and he's going to have a hell of a time explaining _that_ one in the showers. Before he can muster up the energy to complain, though—and realistically, like he ever would—Tajima has abandoned the hip and taken Hanai's dick into his mouth, wrapping his fingers around the base in the same motion, and Hanai makes a strangled noise into his palms and thrusts up.

He earns himself a muffled noise of protest at that, but Tajima can go to hell if he expects anyone not to respond appropriately when he's already so obviously good at sucking cock he _has_ to have practiced, only that's a train of thought for another time.

"Fuck, _careful_," Hanai gasps, something feeling suspiciously like teeth jarring him back to reality, and okay, maybe not _so_ practiced after all.

"Sorry," Tajima says, his breath ghosting out around Hanai's dick and making him shudder. "I read somewhere that feels good."

Hanai just mutters "_Fuck_" again and then thank God Tajima is back to it, and Hanai really does intend to be a gentleman about this but after a few more swirls of Tajima's tongue and the sudden, unexpected pressure of Tajima's hand around his balls, it's over. Hanai's hips jerk sharply and he comes without any warning at all.

Luckily, swallowing also appears to be something Tajima's read about.

"My turn," Tajima says, crawling back up Hanai's chest and grinning. Hanai drags Tajima down into a fierce kiss that tastes good in a way he doesn't want to dwell on, and even though he fully intends to return the favor right then and there he ends up just jacking Tajima off in between them, because any time their mouths break for more than a few seconds they end up right back where they were and more persistent than ever, and Tajima's patience regarding his hard-on will only hold out so long.

They strip all their clothes off and kick them away even though to Hanai it seems a little frivolous post-orgasm, but then Tajima starts lazily dipping his tongue into the crevices of Hanai's abdomen and he retracts his silent complaint.

"I wanna give you a hickey on every single one of your abs," Tajima says against his skin.

Hanai flicks his ear and laughs. "Why?"

"So next time they take a picture of you in the locker room, everyone knows you're spoken for."

It's a little lewd, but coming from Tajima it's also extremely genuine, and Hanai goes quiet, unsure what to do with all this happiness. He settles for running his hand through Tajima's hair.

"If you were in the locker room with me, everyone would know," he says at length.

Tajima looks up at him, lifting an eyebrow. Hanai colors but doesn't back down.

"If you're serious about still wanting to play baseball, I mean. Once you're ready to start again, maybe you could transfer. I bet they'd still want you."

Hanai has no idea if Aoyama is a place Tajima has any interest in anymore—has no idea if just proposing this right now is trying to move things along way too fast—but he can't help all this sudden hope welling in his chest.

"It'd be hard," Tajima says, even though he doesn't sound terribly pessimistic. "I'll be pretty old to be starting on a university baseball track. But . . ."

"But?" Hanai prompts.

Tajima smirks. "If anyone can do it, I can."

It's the undeniable truth and they both know it, so Hanai doesn't even agree, just smiles instead. "I can start helping with your physical therapy," he offers.

"Mm." Tajima returns his attention to Hanai's abdomen but he's positively glowing with that old, familiar energy and confidence that drew Hanai in in the first place.

"Let's take a shower," Hanai says, sitting up not just to distract from the fact that he's very nearly hard all over again. Tajima nods, obviously pleased with the suggestion, and crawls off, leading the way to the bathroom he's never even seen, and Hanai gets his first good glimpse at the purple bruise covering his left hipbone, huge and glaring against his pale skin.

He takes a moment to privately hope they don't have any reporters snooping around the locker room for the next week at least, but despite himself, tips his head in the direction of the abandoned _Baseball Today._ He'll have to write the photographer a thank-you letter when he gets a chance.


End file.
